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I am happy to announce the release of Pinguy OS 11.04 Pre-Alpha. This version has the ability to do OEM installs. XBMC and Ultracopier added as default apps. TED has been removed because of peoples fears of legal use. mvPod has been replaced with Arista Transcoder as this can encode video for more devices then just the iPod.

Things that still need to be added is Elementary-Nautilus, rapid-photo-downloader and Native ZFS File system. Also replace openjdk-6-jre with Oracle Java as openjdk-6-jre is not allowed with a few bank sites.
gnome2-globalmenu will more and likely be replaced with indicator-appmenu as it works with more programs then gnome2-globalmenu like Firefox, the downfall is you can't middle click on a bookmark and make it open in a new tab and indicator-appmenu has a massive memory leak at the moment. Within a hour or so it was using all of my memory making my system completely unusable. So for the moment gnome2-globalmenu is still being used.
network-manager-gnome was going to be replaced with indicator-network but only found out about the app after I started uploading the distro.

There seems to be a bug with cdrtools so burning CD/DVDs with any burning programs like brasero will turn the disc into a coaster. Deluge also keeps crashing.

The default Compiz settings have slightly changed in this version. It's the same as previous Compiz setups apart from the desktop cube. The plugin for the desktop cube does not work with Compiz on 11.04. This is because Ubuntu is using Unity and have disabled the plugin. Because of this I have added a new feature. As you can't drag a window to the side to move it to another desktop any more I have replaced this feature with something similar to what is used in Windows 7. So when you now drag a window to the side of the desktop it will resize the window to exactly half the desktop. Dragging a window to the top of the desktop will full screen it.

Again because of Unity there is no easy way to turn Compiz on or off. You used to be able to do this by right clicking on the desktop and choosing "Change Desktop Background" and going to the visual tab. That tab is now missing. To turn Compiz on or off it has to be done in GDM (the login screen).

At the Bottom of the login screen after you select your user name but before entering your password there will be a drop down box for entering "Ubuntu Desktop with out effects".
At some point I would like to remove most of the options in the drop down for choosing your desktop and get the visuals tab back into Appearance window.

As said there is now a OEM feature. To use it just install Pinguy OS as normal with the user name oem and password oem.

Once installed and you have finished modifying it to how you want it for the end user just run:

sudo oem-config-prepare

Once the PC has been shut down, the next time it boots up it will ask the user for their details and setup their account and delete the original account (oem) you used to install and setup Pinguy OS.

The look of the Distro is the same as 10.04.2 as this is what I am basing 11.04 on (same apps layout etc.)

If you want to help with 11.04 what I am after is a similar setup as the 10.04.2 version. So getting things like Elementary-Nautilus and rapid-photo-downloader working. You can also help by finding bugs and repairing them, then posting on the forum how you fixed it so I can apply it to the distro. I would also like to try and get the size down to 1.4GB, at the moment it is 1.6GB. So if anyone has any ideas how to scrape off 200MB I would love to hear them. Its not a huge concern as it over a CD size anyway but would be nice to be able to get it to fit on a 8 cm, single sided MiniDVD.

This is also the time to ask for features. For a better chance of the feature being added you should let me know how to add it to the Distro. It nice saying you would like for Pinguy OS to use something like Wubi but this would be a huge amount of work as I would have to recompile it and modify it to work With Pinguy OS. Something I just haven't got the time to do. So if you would like something like that added, compile the program yourself to a .deb file so it works with Pinguy OS or make a script. If its a feature I think maybe good for the Distro or something many people want added, I will be more then happy to add it to Pinguy OS.

Because of the way I build the Distro there is only going to be 64-bit versions of the Alpha. Once it gets to the Beta stage I will also start releasing the 32-Bit version.

Congrats on the BLACK background – uses less battery on LED-LCD screens. On mains power, I prefer an off-white background: better legibility generally.

My screen captures are better with an off-white or white background: less glare from room lighting. On booting, I screen capture with a digital camera – again a whitish background is better.

Lots of ken-dolls & barbie-dolls have fun playing with computers. I’m too work-based, so I don’t like distracting visuals and audio rubbish to destroy my work. If you want your Ubuntu improvement to be taken seriously, may I suggest a less CPU-GPU hungry background image? Most op systems do.

All my notebooks/ netbooks can be used solo, as designed. but I prefer using my 24 inch LED LCD monitor in portrait (not landscape).